Pink Floyd was at least four bands throughout its quarter-century existence, so comparing its first posthumous album The Endless River to the rest of the group’s legacy would be futile. And though the album sounds like a natural continuation of the work done by Pink Floyd’s final, David Gilmour-fronted incarnation, it’s worth noting that The Endless River was not meant to be a Floyd album at all. These are stoned jams recorded in the ’90s as The Big Spliff, and they sound like it.
The Endless River does not deserve to be promoted as the continuation of the band’s legacy, if only because it’s the slightest and least ambitious album Pink Floyd’s ever done. But it doesn’t deserve to simply rot and not be listened to. There is a lot of good material on this thing, and aside from the only vocal track, the rank “Louder Than Words,” there’s nothing truly cringe-inducing on it. I can’t say the same about A Momentary Lapse of Reason or The Division Bell, Floyd’s two prior records to this lineup.
Much of The Endless River‘s appeal owes to the fact that Gilmour is zeroing-in on the thing he does best here: making pretty sounds. Liberated from the colossal baggage of the Floyd name (at least at the time), the band members were able to harness their collective talents into an anything-goes pet project. It’s an archetypal side-project album, albeit one made by some of the most skilled musicians in rock.
As such, The Endless River‘s flaws must also be discussed in that context. Most of its major issues come from Gilmour’s tenuous grasp on what makes ambient music really work. Though this is a nice album to put on the background, it’s not texturally interesting enough to break through the barrier of the ears and start messing with the brain. Gilmour’s guitar and Richard Wright’s toothy synths are too familiar-sounding for them to evoke anything more than other Floyd albums.
I will probably listen to The Endless River once or twice in the future, but it will probably never see heavy rotation on my iPod. Gilmour’s underrated solo album On An Island does everything The Endless River does much better, while I will almost always choose an actual ambient artist like Gas or Vladislav Delay if I want to hear background music. But The Endless River isn’t anywhere near as dreadful as it could have been, and, by playing to the band’s strengths, actually ends up being pretty listenable.